Afloat on the Ohio. Reuben Gold Thwaites
cartridge, they don't—all uv it by skiff, like yer see me goin'."
These cartridges, he explained, are dropped into oil or gas wells whose owners are desirous of accelerating the flow. The cartridge, in exploding, enlarges the hole, and often the output of the well is at once increased by several hundred per cent. The young fellow had the air of a self-confident rustic, with little experience in the world. Indeed, it seemed from his elated manner as if this might be his first trip from home, and the blowing of oil wells an incidental speculation. The Boy, quick at inventive nomenclature, and fresh from a reading of Robert Louis Stevenson, called our visitor "the Dynamiter," and by that title I suppose we shall always remember him.
The Dynamiter confided to his listeners that he was going down the river for "a clean hundred miles, and that's right smart fur, ain't it? How fur down be yees goin'?" The Doctor replied that we were going nine hundred; whereat the man of explosives gave vent to his feelings in a prolonged whistle, then a horse laugh, and "Oh come, now! Don' be givin' us taffy! Say, hones' Injun, how fur down air yew fellers goin', anyhow?" It was with some difficulty that he could comprehend the fact. A hundred miles on the river was a great outing for this village lad; nine hundred was rather beyond his comprehension, although he finally compromised by "allowing" that we might be going as far as Cincinnati. Wouldn't the Doctor go into partnership with him? He had no caps for his cartridges, and if the Doctor would buy caps and "stan' in with him on the cost of the glysereen," they would, regardless of Ohio statutes, blow up the fish in unfrequented portions of the river, and make two hundred dollars apiece by carrying the spoils in to Wheeling. The Doctor, as a law-abiding citizen, good-naturedly declined; and upon my return to the flat, the Dynamiter was handing the Boy a huge stick of barber-pole candy, saying, "Well, yew fellers, we'll part friends, anyhow—but sorry yew won't go in on this spec'; there's right smart money in 't, 'n' don' yer fergit it!"
By the middle of the afternoon we reached the boundary line (40 miles) between Pennsylvania on the east and Ohio and West Virginia on the west. The last Pennsylvania settlements are a half mile above the boundary—Smith's Ferry (right), an old and somewhat decayed village, on a broad, low bottom at the mouth of the picturesque Little Beaver Creek;A and Georgetown (left), a prosperous-looking, sedate town, with tidy lawns running down to the edge of the terrace, below which is a shelving stone beach of generous width. Two high iron towers supporting the cable of a current ferry add dignity to the twin settlements. A stone monument, six feet high, just observable through the willows on the right shore, marks the boundary; while upon the left bank, surmounting a high, rock-strewn beach, is the dilapidated frame house of a West Virginia "cracker," through whose garden-patch the line takes its way, unobserved and unthought of by pigs, chickens and children, which in hopeless promiscuity swarm the interstate premises.
For many days to come we are to have Ohio on the right bank and West Virginia on the left. There is no perceptible change, of course, in the contour of the rugged hills which hem us in; yet somehow it stirs the blood to reflect that quite within the recollection of all of us in Pilgrim's crew, save the Boy, that left bank was the house of bondage, and that right the land of freedom, and this river of ours the highway between.
East Liverpool (44 miles) and Wellsville (48 miles) are long stretches of pottery and tile-making works, both of them on the Ohio shore. There is nothing there to lure us, however, and we determined to camp on the banks of Yellow Creek (51 miles), a peaceful little Ohio stream some two rods in width, its mouth crossed by two great iron spans, for railway and highway. But although Yellow Creek winds most gracefully and is altogether a charming bit of rustic water, deep-set amid picturesque slopes of field and wood, we fail to find upon its banks an appropriate camping-place. Upon one side a country road closely skirts the shore, and on the other a railway, while for the mile or more we pushed along small farmsteads almost abutted. Hence we retrace our path to the great river, and, dropping down-stream for two miles, find what we seek upon the lower end of the chief of Kneistly's Cluster—two islands on the West Virginia side of the channel.
It is storied ground, this neighborhood of ours. Over there at the mouth of Yellow Creek was, a hundred and twenty years ago, the camp of Logan, the Mingo chief; opposite, on the West Virginia shore, Baker's Bottom, where occurred the treacherous massacre of Logan's family. The tragedy is interwoven with the history of the trans-Alleghany border; and schoolboys have in many lands and tongues recited the pathetic defense of the poor Mingo, who, more sinned against than sinning, was crushed in the inevitable struggle between savagery and civilization. "Who is there to mourn for Logan?"
We are high and dry on our willowed island. Above, just out of sight, are moored a brace of steam pile-drivers engaged in strengthening the dam which unites us with Baker's Bottom. To the left lies a broad stretch of gravel strand, beyond which is the narrow water fed by the overflow of the dam; to the right, the broad steamboat channel rolls between us and the Ohio hills, while the far-reaching vista downstream is a feast of shade and tint, by land and water, with the lights and smoke of New Cumberland and Sloan's Station faintly discernible near the horizon. All about us lies a beautiful world of woodland. The whistle of quails innumerable broke upon us in the twilight, succeeding to the calls of rose-breasted grosbeaks and a goodly company of daylight followers; in this darkening hour, the low, plaintive note of the whip-poor-will is heard on every hand, now and then interrupted by the hoarse bark of owls. There is a gentle tinkling of cowbells on the Ohio shore, and on both are human voices confused by distance. All pervading is the deep, sullen roar of a great wing-dam, a half mile or so down-stream.
The camp is gypsy-like. Our washing lies spread on bushes, where it will catch the first peep of morning sun. Perishable provisions rest in notches of trees, where the cool evening breeze will strike them. Seated upon the "grub" box, I am writing up our log by aid of the lantern hung from a branch overhead, while W——, ever busy, sits by with her mending. Lying in the moonlight, which through the sprawling willows gayly checkers our sand bank, the Doctor and the Boy are discussing the doings of Br'er Rabbit—for we are in the Southland now, and may any day meet good Uncle Remus.
Footnote A: (return)
On this creek was the hunting-cabin of the Seneca (Mingo) chief, Half King, who sent a message of welcome to Washington, when the latter was on his way to Great Meadows (1754).
CHAPTER IV.
An industrial region—Steubenville—Mingo Bottom—In a steel mill—Indian character.
Mingo Junction, Ohio, Wednesday, May 9th.—We had a cold night upon our island. Upon arising this morning, a heavy fog enveloped us, at first completely veiling the sun; soon it became faintly visible, a great ball of burnished copper reflected in the dimpled flood which poured between us and the Ohio shore. Weeds and willows were sopping wet, as was also our wash, and the breakfast fire was a comfortable companion. But by the time we were off, the cloud had lifted, and the sun gushed out with promise of a warm day.
Throughout the morning, Pilgrim glided through a thickly settled district, reminding us of the Monongahela. Sewer-pipe and vitrified-brick works, and iron and steel plants, abound on the narrow bottoms. The factories and mills themselves generally wear a prosperous look; but the dependent towns vary in appearance, from clusters of shabby, down-at-the-heel cabins, to lines of neat and well-painted houses and shops.
We visited the vitrified-brick works at New Cumberland, W. Va. (56 miles), where the proprietor kindly explained his methods, and talked freely of his business. It was the old story, too close a competition for profit, although the use of brick pavements is fast spreading. Fire clay available for the purpose is abundant on the banks of the Ohio all the way from Pittsburg to Kingston (60 miles). A few miles below New Cumberland, on the Ohio shore, we inspected the tile works at Freeman, and admired the dexterity which the workmen had attained.
But what interested